Price of Love
by California-Italian
Summary: As Juliet wakes up to a slant of light hitting her face, she realizes that she's made the stupidest mistake of her life. AU after 5.9 cause I got too lazy to actually type this until last week. Shules. R&R PLEASE!


**A/n: This was actually written before Wednesday's episode. I guess it's an alternate universe. And normally I hate ongoing action, but I just thought it worked for this. Enjoy :)**

**Disclaimer: Do I own it? No. Will I ever own it? No.**

_I'm tired of singing  
All the sad songs in my head  
But I can't find enough of anything  
To drown out what you said  
And sometimes I find I catch myself  
Letting you back in  
But I'm so tired of singing all  
The sad songs in my head  
Sad Songs - _**Matt Nathanson**

**Price of Love**

As Juliet wakes up to a slant of light hitting her face, she realizes that she has made the stupidest mistake of her life. She twists to look over her shoulder to see Shawn's body twitch when her hair tickles his chest. She doesn't remember much from the night before except for screaming, hitting, and scratching (on her part), snarky comments, jokes, and controlled anger (on his), then a flurry of lips, teeth, nails, skin, and sweat. After that, it was like a fog had descended on her mind. She doesn't remember what she was mad about in the first place, just that she came to his place with nothing but anger on her mind.

She draws the sheets to her chest and sits up. The cold air hits her back, and Shawn stirs but doesn't wake. Juliet slowly slides out of his bed and begins to dress. Almost completely dressed, she picks up her shirt to find half the buttons scattered across the room, and an image of Shawn's impatient expression crosses her mind.

Juliet sighs and grabs one of his t-shirts out of a drawer. She almost smiles when she puts it on and realizes it's his apple jacks shirt. Almost. Because it doesn't quite reach her eyes. And she's not completely sure it'll ever reach her eyes again when it concerns the psychic.

Now she remembers why she was so angry. He had sent her a text message that was meant to go to Gus. It contained the message 'I'm running out of acts for visions. Teach me how to jerk?' Initially, she had laughed, then the true message was evinced. She walked three and a half miles to his place in a blind rage.

Tears are welling up in her eyes, but she refuses to let them fall. The mirror on top of his dresser tells her that it looks like a bird made a nest in her hair. She reaches for a hair tie and feels bile rise up when it hits her who the hair tie really belongs to. Her legs carry her across Shawn's room and into his bathroom just in time to throw up into his toilet. She uses the tie to keep her hair back and almost wretches again because she's taken something else that doesn't belong to her. She stands and spits into his sink then stumbles into his front room. Juliet finds her shoes on opposite sides of the room. Her left one is covered by shards of her phone's broken screen.

_"I didn't do anything wrong, Jules!"_

_"You've been lying to us! When were you going to tell us? Were you even going to?"_

_He doesn't respond but only glares at her with resentment._

_"Typical Shawn. Making up excuses to save your own ass and not even caring who gets hurt in the processes."_

_"You don't even have proof of what you're accusing me of!"_

_Juliet pulls out her phone and fastballs it to him. He moves aside to avoid the bruise that will occur, and the object hits the wall with a resounding _crack.

_The anger flashing in her eyes and surging throughout her body is clear as day. She raises her hand to slap him (again), but he catches her wrist. The look on his face scares her to no end, and she tries to pull her hand away. She wants to be anywhere but here.  
_  
In all honesty, she isn't that mad at him for lying to her. She has, however, been looking for a reason to distance herself from him. That didn't work out well seeing as she woke up in his bed not twenty minutes ago.

She throws the shards of broken screen into the trash can and heads into his bedroom to pick up the buttons and retrieve her black button up blouse. She almost leaves the buttons on the floor because maybe Abigail will find them and know what went on. But Juliet can't do that to someone who doesn't deserve it.

She picks up the last button and knows that she's got no more business there. She doesn't cry. Even if she wants to, she can't because her eyes are so painfully dry now. She stands next to his bed and wants more than anything to slide back into bed with him and just stay there. But it's impossible. So instead, she presses her hand to his cheek and leans down to kiss him. Juliet knows he'll never know, but it still means that what happened is a reality.

She backs out of the room and begins to search for her phone. Finding it under a chair, she notices she can't use it to call anyone because it's only a pile of expensive junk now. She throws that into the trash too and proceeds to dial Carlton's number on Shawn's home phone.

On the third ring, he picks up expecting Shawn. "What d'you want, Spencer? It's early, somebody burnt the coffee, and eight people, including O'Hara, are late."

Juliet swallows the lump in her throat. "Carlton?"

He hesitates and she knows he's deciphered what happened. "I'll be there in a few minutes."

"Thank you." She's disgusted to find out that she sounds as pathetic as she would imagine Bella Swan from Twilight. Juliet knows that she's sinking deeper.

She hangs up the phone and takes her cue. Her hand rests on the knob and she debates if leaving is the right thing to do. But she knows it is. Abigail did nothing to intentionally hurt her. And just because Juliet's heart is breaking doesn't mean the couple deserves theirs broken too. After all, if you love someone, aren't you supposed to let them go?

She can hear Carlton's car horn and leaves before she can second guess herself.

So this is the price of love.

**Finito!**

**A/n: I don't think Shawn and Juliet would actually do this, but like many of my stories, this was written by request of one of my friends. And I would like to thank the band **White Lies **for the idea for a last line and a title. And even though I'm not crazy about this one, I got to insult **Twilight,** so I'm content.**

**Oh my gosh! I just realized that AU stands for Alternate Universe! I've been on this site for almost three years. That's sad that I just figured that out now.**


End file.
